Well as of today its 'carpe diem' or just write anything basically...
So we left off last on Koh Chang in our basic little ratan hut in bailan bay. We were lucky... ish to stumble on the only cool little bar in our 'for those not wanting to be kept up all night by techno' resort run by two very friendly germans who will keep you drinking alcoholic fruit shakes and talking about what to do on the island for literally hours. They persuaded us to take a snorkelling trip where they drop you off at one of the other islands in the region for a couple of days as well.
We had a couple of days to kill until the trip as apparently the boat was currently being fixed (why is there always a catch once you decide to do something...?) so we visited some of the other beaches on the island, even walking the to one of them much to the amusement of all the thais and farang shooting past us on litle motorbikes as we sweated it up and down hills. We had decided not to get our own one as neither of us had ever riden a bike and we heard many stories about farang careering off the steep windy roads when there brakes failed or one to many whiskies dampened their reactions. Apparently someone died on the road while we were there so I was very glad to have taken the sweaty but safe option.
Anyway so the morning of the trip arrives and we get on a little pickup taxi with a few other young and friendly looking types. The guy running the tour casually says 'so you are coming back from koh mak on friday then...' at least two days after we planned to head back. Apparently the boat was still being fixed and even though they had a boat today they couldn't possibly use it again until friday, hmm a bit of a spanner in the works since this would squeeze our time in cambodia considerably. Luckily a travel savvy dutch girl managed to negotiate on behalf of the 6 of us effected and get the tour guy to pay for a night of accommodation for us on the island since we were staying longer than we wanted, best bartering i've seen by far.
So off we headed to Koh Mak and despite it being a smaller island actually found some cool people to hang out with instead of the virtually deserted beaches of Koh Chang. We had 3 fun nights hanging out at 'monkey island' a cute little place run by a bunch of thai rastas who played live reggae music every night, cheesy but fun, especially the song dedicated to that thai delicacy 'pad thai'. Other highlights of our time on koh mak
1) hiring bikes and cycling the whole island in a day (it was tiny) it about killed me though in the 40degree heat!
2) a very brightly coloured snake appearing in our little hut sending Ronan running for google to check out poisonous snakes in Thailand (apparently it probably wasn't).
3) eating fabulous fish bbq on the beach surrounded by twinkling lights
4) finding a little pier to watch the sunset from.
So it wasn't too bad staying longer than planned in the end and the snorkelling trip on the way back was well worth it, with hundreds of fish swimming around us, we did have to share our boat with a hilarious group of Russians who shared a bottle of whisky before breakfast and then looked miserable as hell all day and barely got in the water. We even managed to wheedle some free beer out of them for our terrible inconvenience which we triumphantly drank on our way back to Bailan Bay.
So now it was time to get moving and do some proper travelling...Cambodia. We booked ourselves onto a 7am bus and had a final night drinking alcoholic fruit shakes.
Ronan getting to know the pooches at our friendly german's bar
The boat to Koh Mak
Out on our bike ride around the island
Hanging out on our little pier
Guillem jumping for joy off the back of the unattended yacht him and ronan cheekily boarded
A great spot to watch the sunset from
Dusk at the pier
